OK, David's example of a preamble style in English vs. Chinese seems to point to a particular view of the CLASS name, that is, it is the individual user defining the name. Not the language, not the locale, not the international standards groups.
So, regardless of what country or language a person has defined, they type:
<H1 CLASS=FOOBAR>
When their HTML parser sees CLASS=FOOBAR, it looks in defined paths for a style labeled FOOBAR (here is one point of contention, does it look for an exact match, including case, for FOOBAR? Or does it look for Foobar, foobar, FoOBaR, etc. I recognize that this is not yet resolved...). If it does not find FOOBAR, be it Chinese, Swahili, or Esperanto, that style cannot be used, therefore it defaults to some standard style it would normally use.
Now, recognizing that case-conversion is a problem, I am trying to understand the other bones of contention. In my interpretation, I would say the matching should be exact internal encoding, no conversions no composition/decomposition. However the individual user has typed it is exactly what should be matched.
So, that encoding is determined by:
1) the way the user's machine is configured (locale, keyboard interpreter, etc.)
2) the software the user is using for input, both for the original style name definition and the HTML document(s) using that style name
OK, so this is all well and good for this particular user, but it seems like the debate here is focussed on the other folks trying to view this document, yes??
And people here are trying to determine a way where an individual user can define a particular style, give it the user's choice for a name, and have the rest of the world be able to view it without having to reconfigure their machines, yes?
In this case, I think discussion of the translation of FOOBAR (in this example) from English to Chinese is irrelevant. A style belongs to a user, not a language nor a country.
On the other hand, are we trying to develop standard STYLES for each locale/language? And it would be these standard styles whose names would have translations in every language? I think this is asking for more trouble than it's worth. Better for each HTML editor to provide a library of styles.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding the point of this discussion? I am merely am implementer and a generalist...
Cheers,
Andrea Vine
Software internationalization and localization consultant
avine@eng.sun.comdroido@ix.netcom.com